Sábado, 31/12/2016: Goodbye to a tragic 2016, Sheraton Hotel to open soon, More photo radars for speeders

Hola, Todos –

I didn’t get the paper this morning, so I’ll translate Saturday’s instead, keeping past events brief.  I didn’t want to find out what having a whole weekend off felt like.  I might like it too much.  I might not have gotten the paper because I didn’t have time to go over there and renew my subscription.  If that’s the case, there won’t be another issue until Tuesday.

Pagina cultural –

Upcoming agenda events –

CEDEI – To find out how to take advantage of academic and cultural opportunities in the US, CEDEI is organizing a fair of universities from the US on 13/1/2017.  (Hope they’re not of the “Trump Univ.” ilk – the take your money and run kind.)

Opera – Two new presentations of the opera, “Pasión a Dolores” will be on 12/1 at 10:00 for students, and on 13/1 at 20:00 for the general public.  Both at performances in the Teatro Sucre.  Cost: $10.00.

Articles about –

Vinyl – Jhon Jara is one of the partners of Círculo Musical, which has specialized in music for 40 years in the plaza San Francisco. There is a selection of vinyl as well as other formats.

“Artes subterráneas” – This extreme culture event ended Sat.

CD launch – Colombian singer and composer Urpi Barco will present her new CD on 5/1 at 20:00 in the sala “Alfonso Carrasco” in the CCE.  Tickets are available at La Cigale (Honorato Vázquez 7-80)  Cost: $4.00 until 4/1 and $6.00 on the day of the event.

Galería – The Changarro Fufurufu Gallery is located on the corner of Gran Colombia y Miguel Vélez.  Besides drawings and paintings, the gallery will have antiques and collectibles.  (It sounds like an eclectic selection – maybe their grandmas are emptying out their attics.)

Otras cosas – 

Titular – Hoy despiden al 2016 (Goodbye to 2016 today) (Actually yesterday or the day before depending on when you’re reading this.  Long enough for the hangover to have gone away so you can figure out what day’s news you are reading.  This is being written on Sun, 1/1.)

ETAPA – The budget of the municipal water and telecommunications company will go up in 2017 to $161 million. Part of the budget will be for 2 large projects:  $45 million for the construction of a new wastewater treatment plant in Gjuangarcucho and $21 million to enlarge the potable water plant in Tixán which would become the largest plant serving 70% of the population.

ETAPA finished 50 water and sewer projects serving 250,000 people in 2016 for a cost of $15 million.  Plans for 2017 are for another 100 projects costing $34 million. It implemented the GPON network or fiber optics for internet with 1800 clients.  It wants to increase its GPON customers to 15,000 int 2017, and 35,000 in 2018.  For rural areas, ETAPA invested about $2 million in public internet and phone cabinas.  It also has a plan to get TV over the internet and with the Metro Wifi Project, it will be able to make a large zone of public internet in the streets. (These are some of the reasons we’re living in Cuenca – good water and connectivity – for as many a possible.)

Front page inset titled, 2016 – Año tragico (Tragic year).  The photomontage shows pictures of a partly collapsed building after the April earthquake, the Chapecoense football team (killed in a plane crash), the Tranvía, a singer who died (unknown to me, but well known in Latin América, roadwork, another football team – not Deportivo Cuenca – celebrating with a trophy, and (dum, dum, dum, dum) Donald Trump.  (So now you now how the local paper feels about the Pres-elect.)

Photo radars – 11 of these devices have been installed on the vía Cuenca-Azogues to catch speeders.  The publicity period is over, and the machines are now issuing tickets to drivers’ email addresses.  In 2016 in Azuay, the radars tracked 27,678 vehicles of which 6,348 were speeding.

Sheraton Hotel – The new hotel being built next to the Mall del Río will open in the first few months of 2017.  It is currently 95% complete.  The developer, Corporación Grupo Ortiz, is also building the Batán Shopping center at av. Remigio Crespo y calle Santa Cruz.  It will have 40,000 sq. meters, 3 underground levels with parking for 500 cars, 50 commercial spaces, 15 spaces in the food court and a Sala de Cines.  It will be anchored by a Coral.  (Surprise, surprise.)

Internacional –

Venezuela – The Archbishop of Caracas, Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino, criticized the Government of Nicolas Madura for buying arms while “el pueblo pasa hambre” (the people go hungry).

Argentina – A Federal Prosecutor asked that Pres. Macri, VP Michette and others in the government be investigated for possible irregularities in an agreement signed with Qatar that created a $1 billion fund to build infrastructure.  A complaint was filed by the Peace and Climate Change Foundation of Argentina saying the agreement included the creation of an offshore financial structure with a foreign manager holding total power over the money.  The offshore structure could be used to transfer (siphon?) public funds into tax havens.

And that´s all for today so Hasta Mañana o Martes –

Jeanne